Apple Intros 17" Unibody MBP, DRM-Free iTunes

Phil Schiller delivered the keynote at MacWorld, the first after the Steve Jobs era of keynotes. Here is Engadget's live blog. The big news, predicted by many rumor sites, was the introduction of the unibody 17" MacBook Pro. As rumored, the battery is not removable, but it's claimed to provide 8 hours of battery life (7 hours with the discrete graphics): "3x the charges and lifespan of the industry standard." $2,799, 2.66 GHz and 4 GB of RAM, 320GB hard drive, shipping at the end of January. There is a battery exchange program, and there is an option for a matte display. The other big news is that iTunes is going DRM-free: 8M songs today, all 10+M by the end of March. Song pricing will be flexible, as the studios have been demanding; the lowest song price is $0.69. Apple also introduced the beta of a Google Docs-like service, iWork.com.

Comments

Re:So,no more DRM

[noc007]

No doubt. Trade one PITA for another.

It'd be nice if one could upgrade their existing purchased DRM'd songs for the non-DRM.

No I didn't RTFM or watch the keynote.

Re:Why is the death not mentioned?

[aristotle-dude]

Why is there no mention of Steve Jobs' death announcement? I saw it on MacRumorslive! WTF!

That site was hacked.

Re:Darn... no Mac Mini update

[Yaztromo]

No, docks are so you don't HAVE to waste time plugging and unplugging your monitor, keyboard, mouse, external speakers, USB/Firewire devices, Etc. Just slap down (or slide in) the laptop and fire it up. Business-class laptops have had and still have this feature. For some reason home PC users and Mac users don't get that option.

Use a bluetooth mouse and keyboard. Most LCD displays have their own USB hub built in, and the Apple displays even have their own laptop power lead.

Given this, I fail to see how a dock is in any way superior to popping your MacBook onto a desk, plugging in the display, power, and USB cable (the ports for which are all on the same side of the laptop for the new Mini DisplayPort models, and the leads from the display are all part of a single cable that terminates in the three connectors), and starting to use it. Heck, the MacBooks will even happily run with the lid closed, driving solely the external display. Where is the advantage of a space-wasting dock then the display itself effectively is the dock?

Yaz.

Re:So,no more DRM

[Fulg]

I'm out of iTunes installs, and can't deauthorize anything since all those computers are dead/recycled.

When you're in that position, there should be an option in iTunes to deauthorize all computers. Have a look here and here for more details on the exact procedure. Once you're done, just re-authorize your current computer(s).

I haven't had to do this yet but I may have to soon, since even an OS reinstall on the same machine is counted against you.